2020 Presidential Election Results & Exit Polls commentary thread

[Del Tachi]

There's like 10 conflicting reads of the data here but it sounds less DOOMERY than an hour ago.  Must mean the numbers are looking better for Biden.

For me I just need some idea of what this or that statistic that's being dropped means as this is the first time I've watched the election day vote and it gets aggravating when I'm told to just read 25 pages as if I have the time to do that rather than a quick explanation

Florida R turnout is slowing down relative to D’s as the day progresses.

I mean, isn't this somewhat expected?  Turnout isn't steady across the day, and the GOP was always going to make up the most in the "after work" 4-6pm voters.

[Del Tachi]

A 3.5% lead is not a tight race in Florida.  Just call it already. 

[Del Tachi]

Any hope we might get NC, or is it completely gone?

It's gone

[Del Tachi]

Just out of curiosity...why are Dems still high on Georgia?  Trump has a 100k lead with >90% of the vote reporting, and NYT has Fulton and Gwinnett as nearly fully-in.  The only outstanding vote for Dems seem to spread out between DeKalb, Muscogee, Chatham, Richmond and Bibb, but these are all north of 80% reported already.

Biden probably closes the margin some, but him flipping it this late in the count seems very unlikely to me.   

[Del Tachi]

Just out of curiosity...why are Dems still high on Georgia?  Trump has a 100k lead with >90% of the vote reporting, and NYT has Fulton and Gwinnett as nearly fully-in.  The only outstanding vote for Dems seem to spread out between DeKalb, Muscogee, Chatham, Richmond and Bibb, but these are all north of 80% reported already.

Biden probably closes the margin some, but him flipping it this late in the count seems very unlikely to me.   

There is like ~127K out just from Fulton and DeKalb. I don't think the % are taking into account that its all VBM.

Where are you seeing the 127k number, though?  Biden is already ahead of Clinton's  2016 totals in Fulton by ~10k votes

[Del Tachi]

This election is over. The only question is 1932 or 1980 sized wave.

Just wanted to relive the hubris of this moment, lol

[Del Tachi]

This election is over. The only question is 1932 or 1980 sized wave.

Just wanted to relive the hubris of this moment, lol

Say hello to 1976/2000!

Yup, perhaps 1976 redux. Current NPV is similar, 50.1% to 48%.

Just hope 2024 won't be GOP realignment then.

What is there left for them to realign on?

Biden proves increasingly unpopular over his term his office, and the results from last night prove that the GOP has a path forward with Latino (and to a lesser extent) Black voters

[Del Tachi]

This election is over. The only question is 1932 or 1980 sized wave.

Just wanted to relive the hubris of this moment, lol

Say hello to 1976/2000!

Yup, perhaps 1976 redux. Current NPV is similar, 50.1% to 48%.

Just hope 2024 won't be GOP realignment then.

What is there left for them to realign on?

Biden proves increasingly unpopular over his term his office, and the results from last night prove that the GOP has a path forward with Latino (and to a lesser extent) Black voters

Just so you know, Cubans ≠ Latinos

Trump's swings in heavily Mexican-American regions of the Rio Grande Valley were even bigger than his gains among Cubans in Florida, mate.

What we're seeing is racial depolarization.  Democrats cannot simultaneously be the party of high-earning, White suburbanites and working class Latinos/Blacks.  Civil Rights-era racial attitudes are being phased out as Silents/Boomers age out of the electorate.     

[Del Tachi]

Trump keeping it this close in MI and WI makes me feel good about his chances of holding PA

270-268 map here we come!

[Del Tachi]

Something to watch in MI - Monroe County (south of Detroit) is only 56% reported.  This Obama-Trump county was 57% Trump (58k votes for him) in 2016; Trump leads now with 61%/30k votes.   

[Del Tachi]

https://twitter.com/travisakers/status/1324025795312906243?s=21

Anemic.

I thought Biden was +17 in WI?  lol

[Del Tachi]

This election is over. The only question is 1932 or 1980 sized wave.

Just wanted to relive the hubris of this moment, lol

Say hello to 1976/2000!

Yup, perhaps 1976 redux. Current NPV is similar, 50.1% to 48%.

Just hope 2024 won't be GOP realignment then.

What is there left for them to realign on?

Biden proves increasingly unpopular over his term his office, and the results from last night prove that the GOP has a path forward with Latino (and to a lesser extent) Black voters

Just so you know, Cubans ≠ Latinos

Trump's swings in heavily Mexican-American regions of the Rio Grande Valley were even bigger than his gains among Cubans in Florida, mate.

What we're seeing is racial depolarization.  Democrats cannot simultaneously be the party of high-earning, White suburbanites and working class Latinos/Blacks.  Civil Rights-era racial attitudes are being phased out as Silents/Boomers age out of the electorate.     

Curious to see precinct results in places like Southeast LA County. I want to know if this applies to urban Latinos or is just a rural/Tejano thing.

Its racial depolarization but with caveats. There is still fluidity in the vote and CA urban centers didnt appear to move very much.

Los Angeles County appears to have swung toward Trump.

What?
Urban minorities swung right?
Which poster could have possibly predicted such a shift?

Okay, you expected a Trump win. If that somehow happens, you can have some accolades but right now you're just as off as the 413 map.

We're a lot closer to a Trump win than a 413 blue wave election, lol

[Del Tachi]

https://twitter.com/travisakers/status/1324025795312906243?s=21

Anemic.

I thought Biden was +17 in WI?  lol

But Trump still lost it. But since it's narrow I guess you are settling for a participation trophy.

I can be happy with my candidate's relative overperformance and how the polls/punditry were (once again) very, very wrong.  

Red avatars trying to spin narrow wins in MI/WI is a bad look when the Atlas consensus was these states would be ~8pt wins for Biden.  

The goal posts keep moving, and the desperation is real.  Enjoy Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for the next 6 years (at least!)

[Del Tachi]

Biden winning MI, WI, GA while Trump wins PA, NV, AZ and NC is a 269-269 tie

If that's the 269-269 map, I'll cry lol

[Del Tachi]

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1324065378658639877?s=19

If Nate's napkin math is correct, then Biden barely wins, probably. Doesn't make me comfortable, though

Lol I love it. Napkin math, can we make this a meme?

Uhhm....we don't have to?  "Back of the envelope (napkin) calculations" has been used as an idiomatic phrase since the days of Enrico Fermi, lol   

God, do I hate Zoomers

[Del Tachi]

Looking at the exit polls (yes, i know they tend to be flawed but whatever), 48% of voters said that the fight against COVID is going well, while a similar percentage said the economy was good or excellent.


Shows what a sick society we have and the tight grip the conservative propaganda machine has on people.

No, this shows how terrible the MSM and the people who live in their bubble are.  If it's not salacious innuendo, panic porn or fake scandal they don't care about/report it; it's no surprise many Americans don't listen.  "Real life" wins out over hyper-produced news flashes and concern pundits at the end of the day.   

[Del Tachi]

Looking at the exit polls (yes, i know they tend to be flawed but whatever), 48% of voters said that the fight against COVID is going well, while a similar percentage said the economy was good or excellent.


Shows what a sick society we have and the tight grip the conservative propaganda machine has on people.

No, this shows how terrible the MSM and the people who live in their bubble are.  If it's not salacious innuendo, panic porn or fake scandal they don't care about/report it; it's no surprise many Americans don't listen.  "Real life" wins out over hyper-produced news flashes and concern pundits at the end of the day.   

Wow I forgot how far down the rabbit hole you went.

me and apparently the 48% of voters in the exit poll, lol

[Del Tachi]

Looking at the exit polls (yes, i know they tend to be flawed but whatever), 48% of voters said that the fight against COVID is going well, while a similar percentage said the economy was good or excellent.


Shows what a sick society we have and the tight grip the conservative propaganda machine has on people.

No, this shows how terrible the MSM and the people who live in their bubble are.  If it's not salacious innuendo, panic porn or fake scandal they don't care about/report it; it's no surprise many Americans don't listen.  "Real life" wins out over hyper-produced news flashes and concern pundits at the end of the day.  

No it actually shows exactly what he said.  We are in a national pandemic.  Your candidate is traveling around the country spreading the virus with reckless disregard for the most fragile among us.  It's not a fake scandal.  Shame on you.

Trump's COVID response definitely hurt him in this election (Trump is 42-57 on COVID).  Despite this, most Americans (outside of ridiculously locked-down places like NYC) have gone back to work/school, attended church/wedding/funerals and gotten way more back to "normal" than reporting by CNN or NYT would suggest.  People aren't doing these things because they live in "rabbit hole conspiracy world," but because normalcy is a choice each individual is actually empowered to make for themselves (and many are preferring to choose it.)  

The fact that Trump overperformed so much relative to expectations is proof that national sentiment is way higher than what the "doomers" in the MSM suggestively hope for (and there's even objective metrics that back up this idea, too.)  However, if you spent 24-hours a day watching CNN/reading election Twitter (like many on Atlas do) you'd think we were living during the fall of Rome or something, lol  

[Del Tachi]

Look at this thread.

If trends hold, this guy nailed everything except Maine's Senate race.

https://twitter.com/ReubenR80027912/status/1323274724831473665

The volume of election predictions made on Twitter/Atlas/other places around the Internet was so large, that at least one of them was going to turn out to be eerily on-point

[Del Tachi]

#'s still look good for Biden in GA, but at this point it's really just all gravy (assuming PA flips.)  All GA does at this point is lull the winning side into hubristic complacency about it going into 2022/24; the results there are essentially going to be a tie. 

[Del Tachi]

#'s still look good for Biden in GA, but at this point it's really just all gravy (assuming PA flips.)  All GA does at this point is lull the winning side into a false sense of complacency about it going into 2022/24; the results there are essentially going to be a tie. 

Are you happy with how MS went at all levels, Del Tachi? We don't have a ton of posters from there and you're the one I think of when I think of the state hehe. 

I didn't really see any surprises out of MS.  Mississippi has actually gotten slower at counting votes over the past 3-4 election cycles, which is embarrassing when states like FL dump so much of their vote so quickly.  Turnout was big and lines were long in MS, which means we really need 2 weeks of early voting.

In terms of actual results, it looks like were not going to get any county flips from 2016.  Most of the outstanding vote still out is in Hinds/Jackson, so Trump's margin should come down 1-3pts from where he's at as of this morning.   

[Del Tachi]

GA is important because all of the officials involved in setting the rules for the election there are Republicans.  If Biden wins GA, that plainly defeats the rigging claim.  

Or, Kemp rigged it for Biden because he wanted to run for reelection in a Biden midterm.

I'm not saying this is true nor do I believe it, but Kemp isn't dumb. He knows his chances would be next to zero with Trump still in office. I don't think he's losing any sleep if Biden wins GA.

It's going to be very interesting to watch Kemp transition from a "red state gov" to a "blue state gov."  Kemp has always been more associated with the urban/"moderate" Chamber of Commerce  wing of the GA-GOP so this is going to be somewhat of a natural evolution for him.  He's not going to become a Deep South version of Charlie Baker to be sure, but I think he'll start sounding  sounding a lot more like Bill Haslam or Mike DeWine than Kristi Noem.  

#'s still look good for Biden in GA, but at this point it's really just all gravy (assuming PA flips.)  All GA does at this point is lull the winning side into hubristic complacency about it going into 2022/24; the results there are essentially going to be a tie.  

This statement doesn’t make sense at all but because you’re butthurt that Biden is flipping it you have to get in a dig I guess.

My point is that, whichever column GA eventually ends-up in, a narrow margin of ~10k votes cannot be interpreted as a sign of some kind of structural advantage for the winner.  GA will be hotly contested in 2022/24 just like it was in 2018/20; flipping it from (non-Atlas) red to blue doesn't change that calculus one iota.  Depending on how the tea leaves are read, Democrats (after winning GA in 2020) could over-invest there in 2022 only to watch it *snap back into a Lean R state during a Biden midterm (which is essentially what happened in North Carolina during 2010/14).  

[Del Tachi]

LOL at all the love for McCain. Dems are now the party of Reagan/Bush.

Indeed.  The first line in Mark Kelly's election night speech was that he'd be a senator "like John McCain."

Is that what Democrats want in 2020, lol?  I mean, I guess it may be the best you can get in Arizona, but it certainly doesn't sound like Kelly will be a reliable vote for Schumer on big issues.

The DINOs in the Senate will be Manchin, Sinema and Kelly (at least until 2022, when Kelly's "moderation" won't be enough to save him in a Biden midterm)

[Del Tachi]

LOL at all the love for McCain. Dems are now the party of Reagan/Bush.

Indeen.  The first line in Mark Kelly's election night speech was that he'd be a senator "like John McCain."

Is that what Democrats want in 2020, lol?  I mean, I guess it may be the best you can get in Arizona, but it certainly doesn't sound like Kelly will be a reliable vote for Schumer on big issues.

The DINOs in the Senate will be Manchin, Sinema and Kelly 

John McCain wanted to do what is the right thing in his mind, regardless of the party.

I didn't agree with many of his positions, but I respected him.

Then you have been fooled.  McCain was a Grade A a[inks]hole who shilled for the MIC and was a reliable vote for American Empire during his 30+ years in Washington.  Moreover, in one of the most consequential decisions of his entire political career he chose to elevate friggin' Sarah Palin to Republican stardom, and I'd argue you can draw a pretty direct line from Palin --> Trump through the "birther" movement

The reason you "respect" McCain is because he's notorious for being a media manipulator.   

[Del Tachi]

According to exit polls published by the NYT (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/exit-polls-president.html) Trump has doubled his share of LGBTQ voters since 2016. Can someone explain this?

LGBTs trending Republican is somewhat bound to happen as homosexual people/relationships become a more visible and accepted part of society.  It isn't so much previously Democratic-voting LGBTs swinging Trump, as it is a lot more LGBTs (mostly White, cis-gendered gay men) being empowered to come out in conservative parts of the South and Mountain West.

Consider that the overwhelmingly vast majority of children being raised by a LGBT parent are not adopted by same-sex people or couples (in fact, only about 200k of ~3 million are) but rather biological children of LGBT people from a previous or current different-sex relationship.  I'd imagine LGBT parents are way more conservative than LGBT youth/singles.   

Being gay in America is increasingly less about rainbow flags and pride parades.  It's inching closer to the margins of "normal small town/suburbia."